(CALIFORNIA.) Daybook of the early Bay-area merchants T.F. Baylis & Co. [1], 434 manuscript pages, plus [22] pages of later household accounts from 1876-1880. Folio, 13½ x 8¼ inches, original calf, minor wear; a few blank leaves torn out from rear. Petaluma, CA, 1 July 1859 to 29 June 1861
Located inland not far north of San Francisco, Petaluma was not gold country, but it was a productive agricultural region. It played a large role in supplying San Francisco and the mining interior with produce and building materials, which enabled the region's rapid growth during this period. T.F. Baylis & Co. were there to help.
The firm was a partnership of Thomas F. Baylis, Joseph S. Cutter, and David Sullivan, launched by 1857, and dissolved in 1872. Their regular advertisements in the Sonoma County Journal from this period describe them as "Storage, Forwarding & Commission Merchants," promise "the highest price paid for produce," and also declare themselves agents for the Union Packet Line. They were also sales agents for the Petaluma Lime Kilns.
This daybook contains a day-by-day list of goods acquired or sold in bulk, along with the customer and payments. The goods include oats, lime, bricks, barley, plaster, lumber, potatoes, watermelons, and more, as well as shipments made on local ships. One entry on 11 August 1859 describes the hire of a night watchman to "watch & protect the warehouses from injury from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. very day, and to work on the wharf unloading teams & loading boats from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. every weekday," which helps visualize the flow of goods: carts of produce arriving from the countryside, and heading out on ships.
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